When you learn you are pregnant, the first thing you will wonder is when the baby will arrive. This will also be one of the first questions your family and friends will ask when you share the news. You may be anxious for that first visit with your health care provider, so you will know the due date. You don’t need to wait for your first prenatal visit. You can calculate your due date at home.
You can find due date calculators on parenting and pregnancy websites on the internet. These calculators all work in about the same way. You enter the date of your last menstrual period and click the “calculate” button. For example, if you entered January 1, 2007 as the date of your last menstrual period, the due date would be October 8.
Some calculators give you information other than just the due date. Some give you a list of dates related to pregnancy. This could be the date you will enter the second and third trimesters. Other information that can be found in these due date calculators is the approximate date that the baby’s heart will start beating and when the baby will be viable.
While these due date calculators are a lot of fun, you don’t really need one. It’s easy to calculate your due date at home. All you need is the date of your last menstrual period. Take that date and add nine months to it. In our example of a LMP of January 1, nine months would bring you to October. Then add seven days to the date, so it would be October 8. This is the method that is used on the pregnancy wheel due date calculator used in the doctor’s office.
Figuring out your due date is fun, but don’t set the date in stone. The due date is really just an estimate. Only about five percent of babies arrive on the exact due date. The majority of babies will arrive within a week either before or after the due date.
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